A Word on Words; 3004; John Egerton

ellen johnson you know once again welcome to world war i guess once again this week as an old friend john anderton well in fact your own words i said and that you've been here last week this makes eleven but two weeks in succession it's great to see so angry it back to talk about this wonderful book nashville and american self portrait up with when we broke off last time you were telling me our bureau opening these in the book the introduction of his wonderful book that looks at nashville's best and worst its best in its present and its future you tell me that about that your introductory piece a minute deals with our history it deals with particular last twenty years it deals with our business community it deals with our of politics there is very little in your opening piece that doesn't

touch every interesting base that part of the city's culture and then there follows all of these wonderful essays inside bars buyer truly distinguished writers all of whom are based in nashville but at the end time and i don't say that these almost didn't make it look almost didn't get in there at all i was as i said before i had read the first part of it before anything was done on this book two years earlier and i had put off right in the last part until the end because i thought that would be easy and i'll be able i know enough than about this whole project of the award to make it sound like a really knew what i was talking about so a center right to space and it just not there i am i'm out i guess i could not make it work so we went through the lawyers

file an hour i've heard before of went through this whole thing with the designer jim bateman and with my copy editor susan chapel and nancy rowe the photo editor and more into session on a friday afternoon trying to fill this last hole and they've brought their work they're through they're saying where's your work and i said well i'm not through so would i turn in some fake copy soon it on to the printer does and the book and going or monday make some changes so that's what we did problem was saturday sunday i still couldn't get it done and they're all white and they are afraid to call me on the phone i'm sure they're whispering and their hand you know the old as lost the country of an outcry began to believe that myself where i sat up all night sunday night never went to bed fell asleep two or three times but waking up was more than it had been in a slave about it i was

scared finally seven o'clock monday morning where do the primaries none and are called bateman and i say here comes the top it's terrible but just go ahead and put it into the into the new design and maybe the printer he can i'm sam nunn o'clock here's ellen bradbury has been riding herd on us from the printers perspective to keep us on the schedule we agreed to end up i don't even know what the copy says i have the nerve to really at a gym bag that comes in and says here is i said don't need to cut snow been made and so he said no it's just came right down to the last line of character susie susie goes off work ziad editorial side comes back and says perdido listen to things and so she put it we put in the book we literally went back to the control room and the computer part department of the printer and set down at their consuls

pulled out this whole copy put the new copy and saw proof gave our approval that night twenty five thousand copies of that came off the prius and went into the book and next day was at the binder well let's say it's a great tribute to use a writer and the dill and an end to her as an editor or leaving it as it was and the effect you you made the deadline annual displays which is a great tribute to it well just thrilled and again really only one of the writers here are i mean they got the centers here and huge wide easier for the russell is here and buying is here roy blunt is sending foreclosure is here larry doctor is you worry about is in adelaide doing is you are a wattle and registered here weren't buying another one of a piece on justice and the let me just let me just take you inside the refuge toronto peace the value

the titans the titans during two thousand new apple and i'll play you achieve it again how they read that this year maybe they'll never reached that same chemical but richard uses the titans coming so only to tell us more about the larger story and he does a beautiful job of it at richard who lives in barcelona spain who grew up here in nashville who knows this town like the back of his hand was able to give us an insider outsider do you the city he cut comes back to look at a place that is straddling two the major league and in many ways we want to be up among the leaders of the country and in many kinds of boys and football pro football pretty much symbolizes there and two thousand

was a magical year we couldn't have picked a better time first time in the stadium first time with the with a new name the team logo everything felt new and here they go out and then turned thirteen three season going to go on all the way to the super bowl that was this a it was like a henry cities are there in major league football that have never gone to the super bowl are several never in all their years in so voluntarily are you might say in our first year although technically it's really our third and so it gives richard a wonderful place to go in and say when is it really mean to be a major league city what are the order of the costs of that and what are the playoffs do it i really love about the book is this really a the writers not only is he telling us about our growth about evolution about our

development of the city but he takes the time to go back to his own childhood here to say to him a high school changed football game he goes too with a smaller halftime they all go out the ritual that for mayor of jail ritual have done their all out ways of all long leave room and all manner smoking cigarettes sipping whiskey out flat out the flasks and dropping big talk and he feels a bonding with his father and it's an insight into the person audio writer whose father just happened to be one made great contributions to this to this city wide moran knows bookstore with with the mail with his wife adele facilities but that's long then there is that little son more my friend russell a couple of the perfect

about freddie ross children whose whose writing is in lima not only the city but the nation has sports writing was you know you heat it was described as an heir to the great legacy and i want to say for your brother the grand allies level and reiser i want to say for eighty he's nine ad five i think and i said freddie you know art tatum engine done a book like this and not having new immature by land has been in in national sports since the twenties i can add that up that's eight decades mass in our mortgage and one more decade in here that breaks the guinness book of world record time served for a number of decades sportswriters beilenson here freddy said i don't know from up to a teen on retired la he was up to the states it's not just about this is

dangerous about the losses to last week we talked about what some of the gains were what some of the losses were i mean it progress brian fishman says traffic such things as a as a row houses here such things as unattractive architecture but you know as long as we talk about the the arts that we looked at last week when there were about personalities this week but these are pictures of people one of the things that as we look at these pictures we should think about this vote in the year two thousand shows away we were colombian you and i know that a tuesday in september change the nation forever in our city as well talk about that because you do let's look at this is phenomenal that there is many pitches american

flag and this book as they are but but i congratulate you with christian well i don't i don't think i was pre show and i think i was lucky we are lucky in the sense that it be that you can be looking at all and thinkin about a horrible thing such as happened on september eleventh thinking back on that day i look at these pictures i look at people like this hundred year old ladies singing with her hand on the flagstaff and i think what a wonderful opportunity we have in the city two to be more than we have been in the past not only patriotic toward our own flag but that also bonded to one another across lines of age and race and ethnicity and religion or

national has never had a reputation of being a divisive city it hasn't been through the kinds of fires that birmingham has been through that to many other places in america we have always tried to be to protect our our reputation as a place of moderation unreasonable miss and thats tested when when something horrible happened such as happened on september the eleventh and i think if you go back and look at this book in him wide of the those subsequent events that happened after we had done this book you see a city at the top of its game we see people really striving to make amends for past errors to make contact with new people to to reach out to one another in ways that now we

feel a deep necessity to do all across the country americans since september the eleventh have been reaching out in in the hope that they can make contact with one another without excluding any of the americans who do belong to the us and that of necessity means reaching out all across the world no christian growing says something in that in that chapel the look of the city the things that shaped come on and that's an and i didn't mistake that that's a that is a minute without protests which he says and the other day we have made mistakes in the way oh we've developed as a syrian and then when we built the city much of it has been piecemeal but she says there is so there's a core that the threat that there's there's something being at the heart of nashville you know our downtown look so much better and has so much more of a feeling

of vitality then the downtown of atlanta or the downtown of memphis or the downtown of washington dc are very few cities in america have that sense of life at the core that we do as a tropical song initial song in and so and there is i think within that chapter so low profile only young black actors to me for his old boss a very very soft the us in various goddess is young but he tells about experiences own childhood talk about that little story scott talk and julien mallet good rule to the rest of the tab chapter tales in their love of an encounter he had with aereo plain clothes

policemen presumably from the next four police force in there the late sixties or early seventies i forget exactly when but it's right in that period of time not long after martin luther king's assassination and he has become a man murder of martin luther king through listening to the i have a dream speech which is father had brought home one of projector and played for him and this young man is going out on a date and in the father and fathers automobile and now runs out i guess and this person up coaches his car and i'm not just as barry scott it's about to say i'm so glad you came to help me i need help this cat comes down his throat slit asking him what is he doing here who does he think he is he's our place in seoul says well the insult is either moderate as always

associate him and eight years in the day almost every city has a letter in it and he is says it at the point of a gun and an end he's obviously that that is is his toy and with this kid try and he's been very sadistic bully trying to scare and you know and barry left this place where the los angeles is back here now in the city which are taking he truly love i think he came back because he really wanted to come back it wasn't it wasn't out of a fond memories that he came back he came back because he has work to do here and of the just showed us in a play that an august wilson play date brought to the issue of just recently one of fantastic actor is and jeff carr one of the actors in that play who also has it doesn't look like they did a wonderful job with that play and i see so many people trying to reach out

now to say we are we are nashville humans we both we have to work together to make this city all that it can be for those you just tuning in we're talking today with jonathan about his new book nashville and american self portrait and as i've said before supported it truly is rachel stewart one of my colleagues years ago at the tennessean talks about the athletes transition we are a southern city those are our roots that's our heritage that's a legacy a and m and there's some aspects of this book that and maybe i would like to forget where you would like to free i mean there is that that picture jack or shows nathan bedford forrest that that that statute is created it i am oh what's going on this program a jackass for

some objectives with which which jack her show despised but and i said that he wrote me a letter complaining about but but this is nathan bedford forrest without the jackass before jacket complete ignores an armed but there are aspects of it that some of us we stopped her that were not there but they're there and that and then there is much in this book that told us about i know where cells will also about art a character i'm in a noble aspects of record stores piece covers reading the day honours of the war from going to go so it's beyond old front street here and it tells us that we are ethnically diverse he gets in mali to though white black paradigm of nashville that that's as old as the city he it's also

tend to be black and brown hair than the white brown paradigm that the the arrival of of new americans in nashville and in great numbers and how they feel a part of the mix for a lift out of the mix and how white's reacted him how blacks react with him in it there is a more complicated dynamic at work here with all these different groups and i think reggie correctly sees that he lives in the washington dc area now he comes back to nashville and sees a different city than he is he calls it somewhere on the land bowing on being a diverse multi racial community he tells the story of the tragic shooting oh the korean attempting to watch star stop some fleeing robbery lovers and shot by the

police and so's years ago india and there is that and how that painful photograph of his widow and then there is and then there is a time where does some those the chapter on coal power steering business the business chapter in which munnell carolyn almost a symbol of nashville's self made progress and then father rain and lots for parking lots downtown to supplement his income mother would not built the company into an international the conglomerate as harling is everywhere no single party is and so everywhere in this town is will carroll philanthropy here is that he's put a lot of money into the stamina and a lot of very creative ways and some people have to have accused him in a way of time to bat

recognition and approval and and he neatly a very strongly disagrees with that criticism and tom in his piece for a very deftly i think deals with the ceo of old money new money conflict in love and it's there as there's been there forever i mean it's there in spades and so it does is volatile and then you know and and jack messy shoulder represented the first breakthrough of the in new year of entrepreneurial spirit theyre also on his son is a great deal in the book that talks about our religious heritage or a while and then latvia's raided a wonderful piece really knows more about religion and nashville than than any body and now with great authority i think he he's able to command again

capture the protestant vatican as it's often been called the year of the art capital of protestantism and in all of america and in the world of juxtaposed against everything else it's here catholicism that goes back to the beginning of the cd judaism since the very early days of nashville and now we know that the islam buddhism hinduism all these group great religions of the war or now represented here and sufficient numbers that they bill cathedrals in a narrow wooden temples and it wouldn't really be a piece about national religion if we didn't have the old curmudgeon will campbell are telling us that jesus was a skeptic nicely blackwater i said less rich that ship these years she has a piece of art here and they would just take a look at the reason mark that it doesn't al gore with any

jackson and really sort of takes a look at their america's jump in from out religion politics is is either a dangerous thing to do or else a perfect say their fight continues to say roads along with your review is a religion and politics don't mix so lonely about whatever we know that the saudis are selling about nationals history jar well about three minutes left let me just ask you a what looking at the whole book at all community which you know so well what is it is the one thing that will be remembered for is there one thing that we should really focus on protecting and preserving their many things but is there one aspect of a community that

stands out reminders as a place where we shouldn't really guard against last item this may seem an answer an unexpected answer in a way i could say something about education or medicine or religion or business these are things that we have been known for but truly i think that the personnel to financial is so tied to music this is a music cd and there is no other music city america that that could match this new orleans even memphis have a music that is more more of a museum quality than a living quality but we have the infrastructure here of songwriters and musicians and performers and all they can see ari industries that go with that to make this the premier place in america where music is made and

i think just as as hollywood is to los angeles' hollywood it maine's movies broadway is in new york new york is a million things st louis has the cars right now right now new york is courage in st louis has its art show every town every city that has up and that the unity of personality an icon that he can call its own and that other people around the country and the world immediately recognize is a very fortunate city and we had it in music we've got a great opportunity to make this the the single most important place for music in america all kinds of music country music classical music blues and gospel and rock n roll anything you think other people in this town who know how to make it the real professional people

and i think if we do let that go so that in fifty years we can't say that's what that's who we are we were thrown away our identity john it has been wonderful to have you back the first two weeks to talk about about this new book nine show an american self portrait we've been talking to john about that book and we want to thank all of you for joining us and i wanna thank you john for being here great and dancing are four word on words keep reading